Greta the Great

Music is emotion incarnate. And sometimes it is almost too much to take in.

Despite the fact that I am no cricket aficionado, I found myself in The Long Room at Lord’s the other night for a Britain-Australia Society/South Australian Cricket Association dinner that marked not only the start of the Ashes matches but also the fact that some of the relics of Sir Don Bradman were on show in the MCC Museum.

I knew enough about The Don – as even we cricket non-aficionados call him – to get a buzz from seeing his bats and his blazer and his mum’s scrapbook of press cuttings.

But that was nothing to what was to come.

For The Don’s grand-daughter, Greta Bradman, was at the dinner. And she was there to sing. Which is something of an understatement. She is an accomplished operatic soprano with a voice whose power is such that one can scarcely believe it comes from her slight body.

The intensity of her voice stopped time in The Long Room, with the backdrop of the great cricket ground behind her, and a portrait of Sir Don looking down upon the scene.

And when she went from the classics to When You Wish Upon A Star without skipping a beat, the feeling that filled her and every one of us listening was electric.

Emotion. Music. Love. Greta Bradman exudes them all.